Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 141 



3.— February 3rd, 1904. — Sir Archibald Geikie, D.C.L., D.Sc, 

 Sec. U.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. The following coiii- 

 raunicafcions were read ; — 



(1) " On a Deep-Sea Deposit from an Artesian Boring at Kilacheiv 

 near Madras." By Professor H. Narayana Eau, M.A., F.G.S. 



The village of Kilacheri is about six miles due south of the 

 railway station of Kadambattur. Here permeable beds of sandstone^ 

 and felspathic grits dip at low angles seaward, and are overlain by 

 impervious clays and shales. The boring, after penetrating the 

 upper clays and sandstones, passed through carbonaceous shales,- 

 and at a depth of about 400 feet reached a blue homogeneous rock,, 

 effervescing with acid and showing radiolarian tests under the 

 microscope. Most of the latter display the inner reticulate structure 

 in thin sections, and some of them, when isolated, show radiating 

 spines as well ; they are, however, not capahle of specific determi- 

 nation. One or two specimens of foraminifera have also been seen. 

 The deposit underlies beds of the Upper Gondwana Stage. The bed 

 also contains palagonite, volcanic glass, pumice, mineral fragments 

 (such as plagioclase, quartz, augite, and possibly hornblende), and 

 black metallic spherules of iron and manganese. The last some- 

 times partly fill the radiolarian tests, and sometimes encrust the 

 pumice and palagonite ; they give the manganese reaction with 

 a borax-bead. The author concludes that the deposit is of truly 

 abysmal origin, similar to those described in the " Challenger " 

 Reports ; and he points out the remarkable interest of such an 

 occurrence in Peninsular India, a region which appears to have been. 

 a land-area since Palaeozoic times. 



(2) " The Khsetic Beds of the South Wales Direct Line." By 

 Professor Sidney Hugh Reynolds, M.A., F.G.S. , and Arthur 

 Vaughan, Esq., B.A., B.Sc, F.G.S. 



After a reference to the literature of the subject the following 

 exposures are described : the Stoke Gifford and the Lilliput or 

 Chipping Sodbury sections. From the first section the Bone-bed is 

 completely absent. The beds here rest upon tea-green marl, and 

 are covered by the Gotham Marble. A section to the east of Lilliput 

 Bridge shows two large rounded hummocks of Pala30zoic rock 

 projecting into the Rbsetic, and in both cases the Black Shale 

 is deposited on it in an arched manner, forming an anticline of 

 deposition. There is also a very rich Bone-bed at the base, which 

 is not uniformly distributed. The upper beds correspond with 

 those of Stoke Gifford. In correlating these rocks with those of 

 neighbouring areas, a table of general sequence is given, in which 

 the Lower Rhastic is divided into three and the Upper into two 

 stages, which are correlated with the notation of Richardson and 

 Wilson. This is followed by a range-table of the typical Rhsetic 

 mollusca : Cardium rliceticum and C. cloacinnm, Schizodus Ewaldi, 

 Pecten valoniensis, and Avicula contorta. Palseontological notes on 

 the invertebrata and vertebrata follow. New species of Anemia, 

 Plicatnla, Modlola, and Cardinia ai'e described ; notice is given of 



